10 Months Old

Clara baby is ten months old!  She was ten months old on Monday, but this mama hasn’t had a free second to blog about it because let me tell you a little something about ten month old Clara:  SHE NEVER STOPS MOVING.  So much has happened in the past month, I can’t even believe it.  She had a huge gross motor surge the week after Christmas which I wrote about here.  She’s a master crawler now and will get anywhere she wants to go.  But her favorite thing to do is pull up and stand and cruise along the furniture.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll be reporting by eleven months that we’ve got a walker.  She’s got incredible control with her body… she will pull up to standing, sit down controlled, crawl, reach out for something while just barely holding on to something with a finger or two and take a few steps (while holding on) and even let go and stand all on her own (the longest we’ve counted is 15 seconds).  She. Is. So. Busy.  She seems to know about technology and cords and shoes… those are always the things she’s crawling after these days.  Oh, and Rufus. Poor Rufus.

Her eating has taken off this month, too.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that Clara learned how to eat this month.  Now, that doesn’t mean every meal goes beautifully or that we’re getting a ton in her, but by golly, she’s doing it.  For several weeks she was really eating baby cereal very well.  That was great because I was getting about four ounces of breast milk a day in her through the cereal and we stopped (FINALLY) giving her two feedings during the night while she slept. Plus, I could give her all this frozen milk that was just sitting in the freezer doing nothing since she refused to drink it in her bottles, freeing me up to pump a little less.  Then, Clara figured out how to self-feed puffs. Which was also awesome!  But since she’s figured out how to finger feed, that’s all she wants to do.  Spoon feeding has gotten to be quite the challenge again!  She can do it, but she doesn’t want to. (See some personality shining through?  We are going to have our hands FULL with this toddler!)  However, these are fairly typical behaviors for a ten month old…

So typical in fact that when the folks from the infant-toddler program came out and re-assessed Clara on Tuesday morning, they re-assessed Clara for physical, adaptive, cognitive, social, and communication skills.  And Clara was at the ten month level in every area.  No developmental delays.  We had hoped and prayed that we’d be mostly “caught up” by the time she turned one, but this is an incredible accomplishment for our sweet girl.  We’re so proud of her and her hard work, and so deeply thankful to our God of grace and mercy who has blessed us more abundantly than we deserve.  He continually uses Clara to remind us of the power of many prayers.  May He always receive the glory for Clara. 

Our only real remaining issue for Clara is the feeding (and continued vigilance with germs, of course).  Even though she’s doing so much better with her solids, she’s still only taking a bottle while asleep.  We are working hard on getting her to use a sippy cup and an open cup so that she can learn to drink while she’s awake.  Right now, her daily schedule looks something like this…

7:30 – Wake up, get a clean diaper, go flirt with Daddy in bed.

8:00 – Eat cereal (with prevacid, yumm)

8:15 – Play on the floor while Mama pumps. See how much trouble she can get into while I’m tethered.  

9:00 – Morning nap and 1^st bottle (in that order.  I rock her to sleep, then she drinks her bottle).  Once the bottle is in her, Mama considers showering (usually doesn’t), folds laundry, reads emails, and scrubs hardened oatmeal off the kitchen floor.

10:30 – Wake up and play!  Chase Rufus. Gnaw on coasters.

11:30 – More solids, cereal and finger food.

12:00 – Chase Rufus.  Play peek-a-boo.  Read books.

1:00 – Afternoon nap and 2^nd bottle (again, in that order).  Mama frantically eats lunch, pumps, washes bottles, preps dinner.

2:30 – Wake up.  Sometimes go with Mama and Rufus while they jog at the park.  Or maybe indulge Mama in one of her ridiculous photo shoots.  Chase Rufus.  

4:00 – Time for more solids!  Another bowl of cereal.  Some more finger foods. A big fat mess. (Don’t worry, Rufus helps clean it up)

5:00 – Third nap.  Mama’s favorite part of the day.  3^rd bottle too, if she’ll sleep.  On the days she won’t sleep, I just nurse her.  Thankfully, she’ll do that while awake.

6:00 – Try to distract Mama from cooking dinner.

6:30 – More solids (just finger food this time) while Mama and Daddy eat.

7:00 - Bath, lotions, jammies, snuggles, more stories.

7:30 – Nursing and bed.

So for those playing along at home, that was EIGHT feedings (four solids, four milks) in 12 hours.  I feel like it’s all we do!  But it’s getting more and more fun as she’s learning how to eat a variety of foods. Here are some things we’ve tried the past few weeks (with her favorite ones marked with a *)

*avocado

*banana

yogurt

black beans

hummus

green beans

cottage cheese

*shredded cheese

peas

sweet potato

*pear

carrots (those made her throw up)

pudding

prunes

*puffs

baby oatmeal, barley, mixed grain cereals

and lots of those squeezy pouches with fruit and veggie combos

So, what else is Clara up to at ten months?  She’s becoming a great problem solver.  She will find a toy if you take it away from her and is constantly figuring out how to get around my living room barricades, meant to contain her.  She smiles big for everyone and doesn’t show any signs of stranger anxiety yet (not that we see many strangers with this house arrest, but….) She claps!  She waves!  We’ve been working on baby sign language some, but so far the only one she’s caught on to is “all done.”  Of course.  From the very first bite, she’s busy signing “all done,” “all done!”   She sleeps eleven to twelve hours through the night very consistently and we are all loving not disturbing her slumber with feeds.  She wakes up happy and will hang out in her crib by herself for a long time if you let her.  She doesn’t like being contained in the exersaucer or bouncer seat or even in the pack n play much anymore.  Too much exploring to do.   She loves to read and when you put a book down will turn and reach for another.  She’s great at turning the pages and loves to feel the textures of touch and feel books.  She loves to play with her big cube and her musical table that she got for Christmas… they both allow her to stand and cruise and also learn lots about cause and effect.  She likes peek-a-boo and patty cake and five little monkeys jumping on the bed, and ride a horsey.  She still loves listening to singing and rhymes and chants.  She loves bouncing on her daddy’s shoulders and getting raspberries blown on her tummy.  She likes wallowing on the floor with her granddaddies.  She likes funny faces and silly sounds. She laughs and smiles and is so so happy, almost all the time.  And she got two teeth this month. 

I’d say it’s been a pretty good month for Clara!  Here she is on her ten month birthday (which we celebrated in Elberton with Mama K and Daddy Bob!)

Have you ever seen such a cute ruffle-butt?

Here's my trick!  Standing with no hands!

I love everything about this scrunched up nose, smiling face.